Garry Monk's Sheffield Wednesday welcome Brentford on Wednesday night after both sides were able to secure well-deserved wins at the weekend.
Wednesday were able to overcome Birmingham City 1-0 in a tight encounter at St Andrew's, whereas Brentford were able to defeat newly-promoted Coventry City 2-0.
Match preview
© Reuters
Garry Monk will take a slice of personal satisfaction from his side's convincing win over former club Birmingham City - his first win over City since leaving them last year.
The Owls deserved their win but will have their work cut out as they welcome a free-scoring Brentford side, who ruthlessly dismissed Coventry City last time out.
Wednesday are still bottom of the table, but have cut the deficit to four points and Monk has challenged his team to wipe out that deficit during this coming week.
Monk's team welcome Brentford, followed by a visit from Luton Town and a trip to the New York Stadium to face Rotherham United.
© Reuters
Thomas Frank was full of praise for his Brentford side as they showed great patience and determination to overcome Coventry, and will hope to see more of the same at Hillsborough on Wednesday.
Frank would have been concerned that striker - and the division's top goalscorer - Ivan Toney, came off with a shoulder injury, but Frank was optimistic it will not keep him out of the midweek trip to Sheffield Wednesday.
Toney now has five goals in as many games and will play a key role in Brentford's promotion challenge, having recently sold last year's top goalscorer, Ollie Watkins, to Aston Villa.
The last five meetings between the two sides have all ended in the home side prevailing. The last time they met, Brentford ran out 5-0 winners and Wednesday will be hoping to put in a better performance this time around.
Sheffield Wednesday Championship form: WDLDW
Sheffield Wednesday form (all competitions): WDLLDW
Brentford Championship form: LWDLW
Brentford form (all competitions): WDDWLW
Team News
© Reuters
Garry Monk is still having to navigate numerous injury concerns including Dominic Iorfa (hamstring), Liam Palmer (back) and Tom Lees (groin), who are all expected to remain unavailable.
Monk will also need to decide whether to stick with the 4-4-2 that impressed on the weekend, or recall Fisayo Dele-Bashiru to the starting lineup.
As mentioned, Thomas Frank will be sweating on the fitness of Ivan Toney, though he is expected to return in time.
Assuming Toney is fit, Brentford will hope to put out the same XI in search of their third win of the season.
Sheffield Wednesday possible starting lineup:
Dawson; Harris, Van Aken, Flint, Odubajo; Kachunga, Luongo, Bannan, Reach; Windass, Paterson
Brentford possible starting lineup:
Daniels; Dalsgaard, Pinnock, Jansson, Thompson; Dasilva, Jensen, Marcondes; Mbuemo, Toney, Canos
We say: Sheffield Wednesday 1-1 Brentford
The Wednesday players will be eyeing an opportunity to further eat into their points deficit, however in Brentford they face a tough test. We expect this to be a close contest, with the Bees taking a point back to London.
Top betting tip
Our expert tipster partners at Sporita.com are predicting over 1.5 goals in this match. Click here to find out what else they are predicting for this game and for more of their tried-and-tested football tips.Over 1.5:dataData Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Brentford win with a probability of 51.49%. A draw had a probability of 26.3% and a win for Sheffield Wednesday had a probability of 22.25%.
The most likely scoreline for a Brentford win was 0-1 with a probability of 13.92%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 0-2 (10.37%) and 1-2 (9.13%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (12.25%), while for a Sheffield Wednesday win it was 1-0 (8.23%). The actual scoreline of 1-2 was predicted with a 9.1% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Brentford would win this match.